The Mermaid
by JestaAriadne
Summary: Feliks, a young fisherman, and Gilbert - totally a MIGHTY KNIGHT and not a truanting monk - find a magical creature. (Light Prus/Pol, human/medieval-esque fairytale AU.)


Feliks was fifteen years old the summer the mermaid came. His younger siblings, the boy and the girl, were thirteen, and fighting like cats in a sack. Feliks liked both of them individually but when they were together, they fought like cats: with a lot of unpleasant noise and scratching. Feliks privately thought this was the best argument for saving up for a second fishing boat for the family: when they were older, the twins could go on one each.

Gilbert did not know exactly how old he was that summer, because he was a foundling child. It was possible he had been abandoned due to his unchancy appearance: his eyes were the colour of blood, and however old he was he was still a boy and yet his hair had been grey for as long as anyone had known him. The monks who lived up the hill had found him and taken him in as an infant. This was not a normal arrangement; the monastery was small and remote and its main exports were honey, mead and garden products rather than educated boys and priests - there were no other novices under the age of twenty-five, and no particular system for educating the foundling boy. So his education had been esoteric, patchy, and when he absolutely couldn't avoid it. He spent as much time as possible down in the village on the shore, where he told everyone he was the illegitimate son of a lord and in training to be a mighty knight, and thought they believed him.

People called Feliks dreamy, as he sat for hours working on the nets not talking to anyone, with a faraway expression on his face. But he did his work neatly and well and was not a strain on the eardrums like the twins.

People called Gilbert a little terror as he ran through the streets waving a stick like a sword, frequently chased by the second-youngest monk, Brother Bernard.

* * *

"HIDE ME!" yelled Gilbert, vaulting a barrel and diving into Feliks' pile of nets.

"Get off, you'll rip them!" cried Feliks, outraged.

"Hide me!"

"No!"

"Oh come on, _please_ , if my knight-master catches me playing hookey again he'll give me such a beating with the flat of his sword!" Actually, the monks never beat Gilbert, but this was sort of thing he thought sounded impressive.

"Just get off my nets."

"Can I hide in your house?"

"What? No!"

"In the boat then, I'll hide in the boat -"

"Uhh, alright, if you want... I mean it smells pretty extremely of fish and you were really weird about that last time..."

"Worth it. Thanks, I owe you."

He splashed out into the shallows.

* * *

A little while later, Feliks joined him on the back part of the boat, looking out to the sea.

"So, he's gone, your uhh knight-master. Well, he didn't look much like a knight-master, more like a scruffy priest, do you want to try like chaplain or what?"

"Oh that'll be the castle friar," Gilbert lied cheerily.

"He said to tell you you can forget about supper by the way. Why do you - " He stopped suddenly.

"Why do I what?" demanded Gilbert. "Go on then."

"Shh... _Look over there._ " Feliks slowly raised his arm and pointed over the side.

* * *

It was the first time either of them had seen a mermaid. It was the first time in a years anyone had, in that part of the world.

You didn't think for a moment it was a human. You didn't think, that's a woman up to her waist in water. If it had been a human woman there would have been something seriously wrong with her, her skin was wrinkled as with immense age and had a greenish tinge. But you didn't think for a moment she _was_ human and so there wasn't anything wrong with her at all. Her long hair was grey and corded. The water was nearly still and they could see beneath the water a tail covered in silvery scales like a fish.

Gilbert said, "Hello."

The mermaid looked at them with yellow-grey eyes. She breathed in. She opened her mouth.

She said something that did not sound like words.

It was unbearable - it was _language_ , not sounds - she was speaking, they were speaking - they could not understand each other in the slightest.

Gilbert tried pointing at himself, "Gilbert," he said.

" _Errerbit_." It sounded like their vocal apparatus wasn't the same at all. Gilbert pointed at the mermaid in what he hoped was a questioning sort of way and she startled back. Then she just repeated, " _Errebit._ "

They all three stared at each other. And that might have been the end of the adventure and their friendship, if Feliks hadn't suddenly remembered,

"I've heard you! Are you the one who sings here early in the morning?"

And he started humming one of the tunes he had heard, learnt without realising he was learning it. After a few notes, the mermaid joined in, her voice as sweet and rich as honey wine.

* * *

Gilbert tried to like the mermaid, he really did. He _did_ like her. He was in awe of her. Individually, she was fine. It was just that when they were together, Feliks and the mermaid spent all their time singing duets. And the sound was so beautiful it crept like a vine around Gilbert's heart and made him itch. Gilbert couldn't sing at all. Even when Feliks sat mending nets now he sang out the strange watery songs. Gilbert began to hate every beautiful phrase.

* * *

"Are you _jealous_?" Feliks asked suddenly. "I can like more than one person at once, you know!"

Gilbert was jealous, so fiercely jealous and embarrassed of it that he couldn't speak at all, that he turned on his heel and stomped away from their hiding place by the creek, stomped back to the monastery without another word and never came back all fortnight.

* * *

"He didn't need to get all offended," Feliks grumbled. "He thinks I've stopped liking him just because of the mermaid, but of course I haven't! I didn't mean to ignore him. I'd even teach him the songs if he likes, even though he's totally tone deaf."

"Why don't you go and tell him this?" his brother asked, blithely hypocritical after a day of alternately fighting and sulking at their sister. "Say you're sorry?"

"What? As if! Anyway, I don't know where he goes."

"Sure you don't."

"I don't!"

"Just like you don't know where the mermaid stays on the river?"

Feliks frowned. "Yes, I do know that. And hey I'm really sorry that I'm not telling you but I'm not telling anyone, alright?"

Their sister appeared in the hut door. "That's smart," she said. "You should keep that way. Word's starting to get around."

* * *

The abbot's private study was not, Gilbert thought, very monastic. At least, not like all the other monks' accommodations which were very much _cells_ , perhaps cheered up with fresh flowers from the gardens or fancy work made of scraps of silk and cotton. The abbot's study was richly furnished. Gilbert had been called in to talk to the abbot and a fat merchant, whose fancy clothes fitted exactly with these fine surroundings.

"I've a son," the merchant was saying. "He is sent to the castle as a page - one day he will be a knight's squire, and one day after that a knight himself. He is my only son, and my wife is not likely to bear another."

"We know that you have not been entirely happy here, Gilbert, despite our best efforts in the Lord. This merchant has an offer for you of a new life."

Gilbert's heart leapt. Did he mean-?

"You are rather old to begin as a page," the merchant went on, "however, not impossibly so. If I were to adopt you, you could be fitted to any career - such as a knight..."

"A-adopt me?"

"That is the possibility," the abbot said.

To be a knight! To be part of a family! To have a father! To be a _knight_!

"Before you leave us however," the abbot continued, "you would need to do us all one small service."

"What?"

"This mermaid," said the merchant bluntly. "I understand you know where it hides."

"What mermaid?" said Gilbert stupidly, the bottom dropping out of his stomach.

"Lying is a sin, Gilbert."

"I... it's not... mine..."

"But you know where it is. Your friend Feliks knows."

 _Feliks_.

"What about the mermaid?" asked Gilbert. "What will - what would happen to her, to... it?"

"It will be well taken care of it! It will be given a great indoor pool in my lord's castle and made a great pet of! Why, in my travels I have seen a barbarian lord with a pod of three mermaids, a wonder to the surrounding lands."

This was a lie and Gilbert knew it. There were no captive mermaids. He knew this. He knew they couldn't survive long that way. The merchant was trying to curry favour with this great lord, and he would only want the mermaid for the prestige. None of them cared about her as a person. As Feliks' friend... (But Feliks had been _his_ friend first.)

 _He could be a knight... He could have a family... And then, once the mermaid was gone Feliks would be just his friend again._

"Think about it," said the abbot, who was watching him carefully, "over night. It is a heavy thing for you to tell a friend's secret, even if he is only a fisherboy. Pray this night for God to show you the right path."

"Tomorrow..." began the merchant, a little urgently.

"Yes, tomorrow," agreed the abbot. "Tomorrow we will search for this creature. If you can help us, Gilbert, you will be rewarded. If not... we will find it eventually without your help."

* * *

Gilbert lay awake for hours, and then he made his decision, and it was wrong.

* * *

Feliks' hands were raw and bloodied from where he'd banged on the trap door and tried to scrabble at the bricks of the cellar walls. His throat was hoarse from shouting then crying then shouting again. He probably looked like some loathsome underground creature, but there was no one to see him and he couldn't see anything. It was pitch dark and he'd lost track of the hours he'd been down here.

They had taken the mermaid. He had led Gilbert right to her and now she was gone. He couldn't hear her. Maybe they had already killed her. Feliks had recognized the abbot, who everyone knew was corrupt. And there was another man, well-dressed, well-fed, rich. Powerful people. Some of the villagers had already started to get superstitious about the mermaid, no one was going to argue with those two if they said it was evil or whatever.

Feliks felt despair threaten to overwhelm him. He felt like he didn't have a friend in the world. Were they ever going to let him out of here? Where was here? What about his family? He'd never forgive himself if they suffered because of him. They were probably, he joked grimly to himself, going to suffer just a _little_ by the loss of their son and brother for a start... Oh Heavenly God... He flung himself up the stairs and into the door again and again. Something heavy had obviously been dragged over the top of it.

Suddenly, there was a scraping sound and the door popped open, and light flooded in. Just as suddenly, someone was thrown in on top of him, the light disappeared and the door slammed heavily back down.

"Ow!"

"Ow!"

"Feliks?"

"Gilbert?"

"I'm sorry, Feliks. I'm so so sorry."

* * *

 _Gilbert lay awake for hours. I can't do it_ _, he thought. I can't betray my best friend and turn in this wonderful creature to be stuck in an indoor fountain all her life. But what can I do? They'll find her tomorrow anyway._

 _I can warn them, he thought suddenly. I can sneak out right now and wake up Feliks and we can get the mermaid to swim far out into the sea and no one will know._

 _He jumped out of bed, grabbed his cloak and set out his usual way out of the window._

 _The merchant and the abbot and their men followed him every step of the way._

* * *

"It wasn't your fault," Feliks said at last, but his voice sounded so hollow, like everything had been cried out of it.

"Yes it was."

"What else could you have done..."

They were both too exhausted and winded to talk much for a minute.

"Were you," Feliks began, not sure why he was asking this now, maybe because it was dark, asking anyway: "were you really jealous like? Cos... that's silly, I couldn't be _in love_ with her - even if she was human which she's not?"

"No - I know - it was stupid -"

"Yeah it was! And I'm sorry too, alright? But it was stupid of you to think like that. Because there's already someone I like, someone I'd put first and wouldn't want to do without."

Gilbert offered dutifully, "Oh, you could feel that with more than one person..."

"No. _I_ couldn't. Not me. Not _like this_ , you don't get it." Feliks was mumbling, quiet, almost angry. "But now it's such a mess I can't..." He wiped his nose with his sleeve. "She's dead..."

"She's not dead," said Gilbert quickly.

"What?"

"She - they won't have killed her. I'm almost sure. Not yet anyway. The merchant, he wants to sell her to a fancy lord in a castle, or give her as a fancy present."

"Then she'll die."

"I know."

They both knew.

"But not yet!" Feliks scrambled to his feet again. "We've still got time! Where do you think they're keeping her?"

"I don't... wait. The abbot's quarters. There's all sorts there. And the merchant will take her tomorrow once it's light I bet. Oh... I'm not a knight-in-training, by the way. I live at the monastery."

"Then we've got to get to her! And, yeah, I know."

"Alright!" said Gilbert, "We get her out! But how? And, what? Why didn't you say?"

"I dunno, you seemed sensitive about it, and I don't care."

The thing was, Feliks was the one who really knew how impossible it was to escape the cellar. And now the despair which had lightened for an instant threatened to drop heavy again. Nevertheless, he took Gilbert by the hand and they climbed the steps ready to hurl themselves bodily at the door again just on the off-chance-

There was a scraping noise.

The door popped open.

Silhouetted in the light from the trapdoor was the second-youngest monk, Brother Bernard.

"Now now, young Gilbert." He beamed. "You really must stop running off and getting lost like this."

* * *

The three of them jogged up the hill to the monastery, Brother Bernard filling them in on the way.

"I've tried - me and the other brothers - we none of us approve of what the abbot's doing. But she's terrified, screaming whenever we try and go near the room, and we'll never get her out without being caught. Gilbert, do you think you and your friend..."

Gilbert looked at Feliks. Feliks nodded. His face, grimy with dirt and tears and snot, was radiant from within.

"Let me talk to her."

It was a nerve-wracking time, sitting outside in the corridor while Feliks sang songs softly, over and over, and the mermaid eventually ceased the unearthly keening and crying. Bernard had been right: they could never have transported her through the nocturnal monastery in that condition, once out of the abbot's fancy furnished room she would have woken everyone in the place.

The mermaid was in a barrel half-full of water, chained by her wrists.

She'd never looked so like an animal, and it made Feliks feel sick, but they had to keep her in her barrel of water as they traveled by cart down the hill to sea. He sat by her all the way, and sang to her. Gilbert sat by him and stroked his shaking hands.

* * *

It wasn't hard to explain to the mermaid she had to leave and never come back. She'd probably been put off humans for ever and ever and ever, Gilbert thought, he wouldn't blame her if she never shared her beautiful song with anyone else in the world.

"Thank you," he felt he should say. "I'm sorry," he whispered, as her tail flapped in the foam. "I have been honoured."

 _I want to tell her to come back and visit,_ he thought, _but I can't._

Feliks with still singing their wordless song, with tears running down his face.

* * *

"The monks were talking," said Gilbert to Feliks, once it was all over and passed into village gossip and old gossip at that, "about... was there something _about_ the mermaid, sorta thing, that made us all act a little irrational. Like maybe we humans can't live with creatures like this, anymore, and then a lot of stuff about the Fall."

"Yeah?" said Feliks, curious. "So, like your abbot and the merchant couldn't help being all avarice-y, and you just got smacked with jealousy like boom, nothing you can do?"

"Yah, that's the thing, isn't it?" Gilbert nodded grimly. "Me and some of the guys, we thought, no. That's just an excuse, isn't it? I think it is. Like. Yeah, you're right, I was jealous. I thought you'd - forget about me or stop caring or whatever. But thinking that was my problem."

"Ha..." said Feliks. "I didn't even know you knew I _did_ care about you back then. I thought I was being totally subtle."

"But you did... care?"

"I guess. Oh, _duh_. Come on."

"I sort of knew. But I sort of didn't. I sort of thought no one cared."

"Yeah, about that..." Feliks glanced around wondering how to phrase this tactfully. "Like I know they're not your blood relations or anything and... I know I'm really lucky in that regard but... your monks aren't so bad really, are they? Like Brother Bernard."

Gilbert sighed. "You're right. They're stick-in-the-muds maybe but. I love them. Really."

"Except that abbot."

"Very much excepting him. He's gone, by the way."

" _Is_ he?" asked Feliks. "I wondered."

"Yah, apparently there's some church politics going on anyway so the higher-ups wanted to get rid of him." (Gilbert was very full of monks chat and church politics this week.) "So they actually cared and moved fast on the corruption allegations and all."

"So who's in charge now? Brother Bernard?"

"Nah, you kidding? He's the second-youngest monk. Totally junior. Like me."

"And you...?"

"I'm gonna stay! Or - I'm gonna see if I can stay partly, and partly here in the village. I've promised Brother Bernard I'll do all my learning letters and pay attention. Then we were saying... this is going to sound crazy, but what if _I_ teach kids like me? Or work in the infirmary?"

"Is there one?"

"We might make one."

"That's really great Gilbert," Feliks said warmly. "Wow I'm so happy you're - well you're happy!"

Gilbert grinned broadly. "Yeah I am, aren't I? When'd that happen. And what about you?"

"Hey, I've always been happy."

"I mean - what will you do?"

"Uh, fish? Get this new boat? I wasn't the one who wanted to knight-errant the world."

"So you really are happy here?"

"Yeah. I like the village, my family, my friends. You. I'm totally glad you're staying. And..."

"And?"

"If you ever change your mind and do want to go on a quest? I'll come with."

And here and there, in peace and in adventure, they lived happily ever after.


End file.
